Edson Spencer dies at 85; CEO refocused Honeywell Inc.

Notable deaths of 2012

Bloomberg News

Edson Spencer, who as head of Honeywell Inc. first battled IBM's dominance of the computer market in the 1980s, then gave in and focused his company on automation and aerospace technology, has died. He was 85.

He died Sunday at his home in Wayzata, Minn., after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurodegenerative brain disease, his family said.

In his 34-year career at Honeywell — known as Honeywell International Inc. since its acquisition in 1999 by AlliedSignal Inc. — Spencer rose from an aeronautical engineer to the company's chief executive from 1974 to 1987. Midway through his tenure, Honeywell's top competitor in mainframe computers, International Business Machines Corp., settled a long-running antitrust investigation by the U.S. Justice Department that had constrained its growth.

IBM's "power wasn't recognizable before then," Spencer told Computerworld magazine in 1986. With the antitrust case behind it, IBM invested in new factories and took on Japanese competitors, "and the government permitted them to go after new market share without fear of antitrust reprisal. That's when the name of the game changed, and that's the point at which we had to redirect our own strategies."

Within a year after that interview was published, Honeywell, then located in Minneapolis, spun off its computer unit into a venture shared with NEC Corp. of Japan and Groupe Bull SA, France's state-owned computer maker. As part of the restructuring, Honeywell pledged to eliminate 4,000 jobs, the Associated Press reported. It also purchased Sperry Aerospace Group, maker of electronic gear for military and commercial aircraft, from Unisys Corp.

In a statement at the time, Spencer called the purchase "an outstanding opportunity for Honeywell that positions us for the long term in a market that is expected to have significant growth for the next 10 years, commercial and military aviation."

Today, Honeywell's aerospace unit, which makes cockpit controls and auxiliary power units, is the second-largest of the company's four divisions, behind automation and control solutions. It had $11.5 billion in sales last year, or 31% of total sales of $36.5 billion for the company, now based in Morris Township, N.J.

Edson White Spencer was born June 4, 1926, and raised in Chicago, the son of William M. Spencer, chairman of the North American Car Corp., which leased and operated railroad cars, and the former Gertrude White. His maternal grandfather, F. Edson White, was president of the Armour & Co. meat-packing business and served on the board of Chase National Bank.

After being discharged in 1946 as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, he graduated from Williams College and earned a master's degree from Oxford University, which he attended for two years as a Rhodes scholar.

He worked for Sears Roebuck & Co. before joining Honeywell in 1954. He became an executive vice president in 1969 and was promoted to president and chief executive in 1974. After stepping down as chief executive in 1987, he remained chairman for another year.

U.S.-Japanese relations were among his passions, and he served on the U.S.-Japan Business Council and the Trilateral Commission.

Spencer and his wife of 62 years, the former Harriet McClure Stuart, were founders and longtime supporters of the Yellowstone Park Foundation. She survives him, along with a daughter, three sons and nine grandchildren.